Well, if you haven’t heard, this site has been around for six months now, and, to celebrate, I’m holding a giveaway! Even if you don’t want to enter to win a prize, you really should head over just to see the comments being left. One or two gave me a lump in my throat, which, admittedly, isn’t too hard to do lately—Am I the only one who can never, ever watch P.S. I Love You again? Even Flash of Genius—I had to skip to the end to see the happy ending before I lost it, just 20 minutes into the video. This does not bode well for my future, in which I am supposed to grow more emotional, aren’t I? But back to the comments: all of them have felt like they were written by old friends, and have convinced me, more completely than before, that the people who read this site are some of the nicest you’ll find, anywhere.

Speaking of which, those of you who love chocolate were awfully patient last week when I posted, the day before the biggest chocolate holiday of the year, a recipe for iced lemon cookies.

So today, I’m making it up to you.

I dare you—chocolate prejudices notwithstanding—to eat just one of these. Part chocolate-chip cookie dough (but no raw eggs, for anyone concerned) and part fudgey brownie, these were first made for me by my friends Craig and Shelley, when I was up visiting last fall. In their basement one night, after putting their son to bed, Craig set a Tupperware container of these on the coffee table, offering them before I held the baby and Shelley taught me how to use a Wii. A few minutes later, when Shelley said she’d split a second, I grabbed a whole one for myself. (Just between us, it took some restraint not to reach for a third right then, too, but I was a guest, after all.)

This year, I worked Valentine’s, in exchange for having yesterday, my mom’s birthday, off (completely worth it. Happy birthday, Mom!).

And anyway, I’m of the opinion that, if you have to work on a day like Valentine’s, or, really, any day, whether a rainy Monday or a sunny Wednesday, you really ought to have a rich dessert. I can’t think of a time when it’s not appropriate, (well, except maybe when your date is telling you that no, she doesn’t like cheesecake and you make her eat it anyway. Yes, I am the one who doesn’t like cheesecake, and, yes, he made me share his—don’t do that, OK?). So that’s how I ended up in the grocery store around 10 PM last Friday night, just me and a dozen or so lone men rushing for pink and red balloons and greeting cards. I had Shelley on the phone, calling out ingredients, and I had the memory of those brownie-cookies in my mind.

With a layer of rich chocolate brownie topped by cookie dough as good as any you’ve licked out of a bowl, drizzled with chocolate-chip glaze on top, these bars are the definition of decadent. But if you’re thinking that means they’re too rich, akin to cheesecake or that liquid chocolate Starbucks used to make, don’t. Not only could I eat the cookie dough by itself (and did, tasting one chunk and then another, later scraping the bowl clean after it was emptied), but I think I ate five bars Saturday, not that anyone was counting. It was Valentine’s Day, after all, and, um, I did have to work. Mostly though, these are just really, really good brownies. Try them, and you’ll understand.

Directions:
MAKE THE BROWNIE LAYER:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 9 X 13 pan. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine sugar, cocoa, flour and salt. Add oil, eggs and vanilla, and beat on medium speed for about three minutes. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely.*

MAKE THE COOKIE DOUGH/FILLING:
In a medium bowl, combine butter with white and brown sugars. Add milk and vanilla and mix until combined. Then add the flour. Spread this over the cooled brownies and then top with glaze.

MAKE THE GLAZE:
Microwave the semisweet chocolate chips with a tablespoon of butter until lightly melted, but with chunks of chocolate still in tact. Spread over brownies.**

*I’ll just admit that I didn’t wait for the brownies to cool, but I spread the cookie dough over the brownie layer, carefully, and stuck that whole thing in the fridge over night. In the morning, I made the glaze to put on top before leaving for work.

**Also, to be transparent, I decided I wanted more glaze at the end, so I made a second batch and spread that all over, too. In other words, I used 2 cups chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons butter.

I can’t stop talking about the weather, which I guess isn’t very new to you all. I tend to do this a lot, and I think maybe I should have been a gardener or a botanist or something. I am so aware of what’s going on outside. The two years I belonged to the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, I literally went every week, sometimes more than once, just to be outdoors, away from big buildings and heavy traffic, to sit in grassy fields with a book or walk through forests of fallen leaves. I’ll admit too that I feel this insane sense of wonder at the changing seasons, that watching days of rain and gusts of wind turn autumn into winter amazes me every year and that the first warm days of spring, which hint at winter’s end, are enough to make me powerfully optimistic in areas of my life that have no connection whatsoever to the weather. Even though I know what’s coming in some sense, the fact that it does and that I have absolutely no control over it makes me feel hopeful, happy to trust that which is greater than I.

Here in Chicago, we are having the most gorgeous February days I can remember—warm breezes, melting snow, the need for light jackets and not hooded parkas. I drive down the street to people jogging—wearing shorts, no less! And even though I know this can’t last, I also know we’re near the end. We are climbing down the hill of winter, with much more momentum (or at least more daylight), and I am thrilled. It’s enough to make me waltz into the produce section of the grocery store and pick up two celery roots, having no idea what their price was, let alone what I’d do with them (and then later just to chalk it up as a learning experience that one was rotted). It’s enough to make me clean and organize a bunch of files on a Saturday afternoon. And that same Saturday, while I wore a tank top and jeans and sat next to an open window, it was enough to inspire me to make ice cream.

I recently came into possession of an ice cream maker, complete with its instructional guide, and I don’t know what I was expecting, other than that it would be difficult to use. It wasn’t.

For this recipe, I was aiming for gelato—using a Serious Eats recipe that didn’t require eggs, as I only had one left. I am notorious for choosing recipes based on what I already have in the kitchen, and I substitute things much more than I should. So when I took a bite of this dessert, where I used skim milk instead of whole and coffee creamer instead of dry milk powder, what I tasted wasn’t gelato; it was ice milk. Do you remember ice milk? It used to be fairly common, a less expensive sister to ice cream but with less dairy fat, more icy and much lighter. My grandma used to keep a carton of it in her freezer, next to the orange sherbet and not far from a cabinet behind the kitchen’s swinging door, where I’d often sneak into her secret stash of cones.

I haven’t had ice milk—or really thought much about it—in years. You can’t buy it anymore. In fact, when I zip through the frozen foods section of Dominick’s or Whole Foods, I see gelato and frozen yogurt and dozens of versions of ice cream, but no ice milk. According to Wikipedia, it disappeared in 1994, when the FDA changed the rules of terminology, turning ice milk into low-fat ice cream—maybe a more marketable term, yes, but, in my opinion, much less charming. Over time, as manufacturers tried harder and harder to make low-fat ice cream taste like regular ice cream, the texture of ice milk became more and more obscure, and now, it’s just not available.

This icy, refreshing stracciatella (from the Italian for “torn apart,” like the chocolate bits in this) mixture isn’t as creamy as regular ice cream, but it’s also not as heavy. Eating a bowl of it, you feel refreshed, not overloaded. Think the flavor of chocolate-chip ice cream meets the texture of a frozen slushy or Italian ice. As you spoon dollops of it into your mouth, the strongest sensations are cold and sweet—just the way frozen desserts should be. And while it was perfectly lovely on Sunday, a February day when I drove with my windows down, the wind blowing in my hair, it’d also be wonderful in the heat of summer as an ideal way to cool down or, heck, even in the blizzards of March, which I suspect are just around the corner for some of us. After all, just because it’s technically winter doesn’t mean we have to eat like it. With stracciatella ice milk, it’s summer, at least in my kitchen, and I like it that way.

Directions:
Combine the milk, corn syrup and heavy cream in a large saucepan. In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, gelatin and coffee creamer. Whisk the dry ingredients into the milk-cream mixture, and bring to barely a simmer, stirring constantly over moderate heat.

Remove the mixture from heat and cool. Stir in the vanilla. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator, at least four hours or overnight.

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As the ice cream is churning, combine the melted chocolate and the oil. Drizzle into the ice cream for the last few minutes of churning.

Transfer the mixture into a metal loaf pan and freeze. When ready to eat, defrost for 10 to 15 minutes before attempting to scoop.

Well, I don’t know how things are looking in your neck of the woods, but around here, they’re all bright and sunshine, despite what Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow said. I mean, yes, it’s cold. Oh wow, it’s cold. However, I do wake up to rays of streaming daylight now, and my drive home happens just as the sun sets, and this weekend’s temps are projected to be in the 50s.

Actually, February’s looking better than ever, wooing me with the anticipation of springtime. My eyes have stopped itching, so I can wear my contacts again. LOST is back. I have the day off tomorrow. And, yesterday, I bought 250 white bakery boxes for less than $35, through some online wholesaler that beat all the competition.

As far as the 250 bakery boxes—I probably should explain, shouldn’t I?—I have a few secret plans in the works, and I’ll tell you about them as soon as things are more finalized. For now, though, just know big things are brewing, and cross your fingers for me. Please? The very idea—or really, the possibilities before me—make me giddy with excitement. I don’t want to jinx anything.

Doesn’t the name panna cotta just sound pretty? It makes me feel like I’m wearing a black dress and sitting at a table with a linen table cloth. Yet it’s not pretentious: It’s true you could serve panna cotta at a dinner party to oohs and ahs, but it’s equally lovely on a small plate while you watch T.V. in your pajamas. The name comes from an Italian phrase that means “cooked cream,” and, essentially, that’s what it is: a blend of heated cream, milk and sugar, in this case also with chocolate; mixed with gelatin and water, chilled overnight.

An eggless custard that’s silky smooth, panna cotta came to me by sheer accident. As the owner of two fresh blood oranges (I can’t resist new produce when it’s in front of me), I Googled recipes that would use them up, without requiring me to buy any more, and I found this: chocolate panna cotta with blood oranges and pistachios.

Desserts like these invite elaborate presentation, so if you make it, you may as well comply. When you do, I offer these suggestions, based on my experience: 1) Don’t use long, skinny containers, even if they are pretty glasses. Panna cotta is a light, wobbly dessert (think Jell-O), and if it’s to hold up properly, it needs a substantial circumference at its base. Look for short, fat glasses or handy little ramekins. 2) When you mix up the custard to chill, go ahead and slice up your blood oranges and chop up the pistachios, too. The next day, when you’re loosening panna cotta onto plates, you’ll be glad to have the prep work behind you.

This dessert is as lovely to look at as it is to say. And taste? Spoon a bit into your mouth, the silky chocolate cream blending with bits of salted pistachios and tart oranges on your tongue, a mixture of salty and sweet flavors, and you’ll be hooked. While panna cotta may not be the kind of thing you’d eat buckets of (as certain versions of gelato could be, let’s say), it is the kind of thing that packs beauty with flavor and that leaves you feeling refreshed, not overloaded, when you’re done. Celebrate February with it or, celebrate the fact that it’s Wednesday. Heck, celebrate a bunch of white boxes. The choice is yours.

Directions:
Brush your glasses, ramekins or custard cups very lightly with canola oil; set aside. Pour milk into a medium bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over milk and let stand until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, stir whipping cream and sugar together in a heavy medium saucepan over medium high heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat, add chocolate and whisk until melted. Whisk warm chocolate mixture into milk mixture in bowl and stir until completely dissolved. Pour into cups, cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

When ready to serve, run a knife around the inside edge of the cups to loosen panna cotta, then turn them out onto plates and garnish with oranges and pistachios.

I’ve never met a brownie I didn’t like. They’re like rainy days, new shoes and old-time television in that way: No matter how many times you have one, it’s still just as enjoyable. So when I saw this random recipe Friday, torn out of a magazine, tucked under some other papers on the table, I wasn’t a hard sell. I’d be making them that night.

Nigella Lawson said somewhere that food should be a celebration. (That’s when I knew I liked her, incidentally.) And that’s really what these brownies are. When I mixed the batter together, its rich, dark color riddled with chips of chocolate and thick in consistency, I kept asking myself, What should we celebrate?

And I suppose I never did find an answer, although, in another way, I found several. Saturday night, driving home from the basketball game, we ate these brownies and some banana bread in the car, celebrating the Spurs and a good night. Sunday, after seeing my friend for lunch after church, I ate a brownie with my fingers, grabbing bits and taking them with me to the computer. I ate another at my desk yesterday morning, I wish I could say with my lunch, but really it was more of a breakfast, on a day when the sun didn’t set until around 5 PM (!) and the golden sky signaled hope that winter and its dark days would end.

When we say food is celebrating—well, I guess I can’t speak for Nigella—but I think, we’re saying we choose to see things to celebrate with it, be they Friday nights at home or Saturdays spent cleaning or Sundays eating grilled-chicken pitas over interesting conversation. When we celebrate, we are stopping to think about the good things and remember why they’re good.

With these chunky, dense, intensely chocolate brownies, you’ll find it easy to see what I mean. They’re rich—I couldn’t eat more than one in a sitting, and that was all alone in the kitchen—and they’re all the things a good brownie should be. If they were shoes, they’d be a killer pair of black heels, always in style and just a little bit fancy.

In fact, eating them, you might find they’re a reason to celebrate in themselves.

What’s unique about these brownies is their shape. You cut them into circles, making them look a little fancier, and you can garnish with whipped cream, shaved chocolate and espresso powder, if desired. Since I didn’t have a 1.5-inch round cutter, I got creative and used the bottom of a glass for a template. Then I tried a few other round items until I found a shape I liked. Whatever you do, remember the brownies will be rich; you’ll want to aim small in the sizing.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9-by-13-inch pan (or a 10-by-15-inch jelly roll pan). For guaranteed easy removal of the brownies, line the greased pan with parchment, and grease the parchment.

Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl or in a saucepan set over low heat.

Add the sugar, stirring to combine.

Stir in the cocoa, salt, baking powder and vanilla.

Whisk in the eggs, stirring until smooth.

Add the flour and chips, stirring until smooth.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the brownies for 28 to 34 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and barely set in the center.

Remove the brownies from the oven, and cool for at least 1 hour before cutting.

Use a 1.5-inch round cutter to cut as many circles as possible out of the brownies. Wrap well; enjoy the leftover scraps.

The first time I tried to post about these cookies was in the middle of December, just after I had mixed up the dough, a doubled recipe, and placed a group of wrapped logs in my freezer. There were four different kinds—chocolate, lemon-chamomile, pecan and chocolate chocolate-chip—and the mixing and rolling had been a snap. It was the kind of thing I’d usually love to tell you about. But instead, the next day I just stared at my blank computer screen, watching the clock tick by in the upper right-hand corner. It was actually pretty horrible, now that I remember it. I’d try to think about the cookies, and I’d look at the photos of them, and, well, nothing.

So I tried again a week later, after I’d sliced the logs into thick coins and baked several batches for a holiday party, stacking them in clear containers lined with red tissue paper. Still nothing.

By the time I was giving groups of them as gifts at Christmas, I had all but given up on posting here, despite how delicious these easy, easy icebox cookies turned out to be, the perfect kind of slice-and-bakes, with infinite varieties limited only by your preferences.

Yet now, here I am, almost a month later, and I’ve decided to try once more. The thing that really did it for me was coming home Monday night, tired and achy and a little discouraged, and pulling out the frozen lemon-chamomile ones for dessert. A quick defrost in the microwave—30 seconds or so should do it—and they were just as good as when they first came out of the oven. I think I ate eight of them, right there at the counter. I decided then, for goodness’ sake, it was time to post these already.

These are cookies you want to have in your back pocket. Or, even better, frozen in logs to be baked when you want them, or baked and frozen to be defrosted when you WANT THEM NOW. These are one-size-fits-all cookies, something-for-everyone cookies, mix-today-for-later cookies. With a shortbread-like texture and a million possibilities, they’re simply delicious, and you have to try them.

[And if that sounds a little, well, lacking? Cut me some slack. I tried three times, OK? These cookies want to speak for themselves.]

The possibilities are endless with these guys: anything you think you might like in a shortbread-style cookie, try. Because there are so many varieties imaginable, I just went with ingredients I had on hand: crumbled lemon-chamomile tea & lemon zest; chopped pecans; chocolate chips; cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Also, because they are slice-and-bake style, you can make the dough, form it into a log and freeze it for up to one(!) month(!). Then, anytime you want fresh-baked cookies, just slice and pop them in the oven.
Ingredients:
2 sticks (8 ounces; 230 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour

Directions:
Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until it is smooth. Add the sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat again until the mixture is smooth and silky. Beat in the egg yolks, followed by the salt and any dried fruits, zest, nuts or seeds. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, beating just until it disappears. It is better to underbeat than overbeat at this point; if the flour isn’t fully incorporated, that’s okay just blend in whatever remaining flour needs blending with a rubber spatula. Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Wrap each piece of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Working on a smooth surface, form each piece of dough into a log that is about 1 to 1 1/4 inches (2.5 to 3.2 cm) thick. (Get the thickness right, and the length you end up with will be fine.) Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for 2 hours. (The dough can be wrapped airtight and kept refrigerated for up to 3 days or stored in the freezer for up to 1 month.)

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

While the oven is preheating, roll cookie logs in any coatings of your choice. Then, using a sharp slender knife, slice each log into cookies about 1/3 inch (10 mm) thick. (You can make the cookies thicker if you’d like; just bake them longer.) Place the cookies on the lined baking sheets, leaving about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) space between them.

Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are set but not browned. Transfer the cookies to cooling racks to cool to room temperature.

Keeping: Packed airtight, the cookies will keep for about 5 days at room temperature, or in the freezer for a month. Unbaked logs can be frozen for longer.

I feel like I should start this post off by saying, Merry Christmas! So, Merry Christmas, all of you—whether you’ve been reading since this site began or if you’ve swung by just now, on the hunt for a festive candy. It is Christmas Eve, after all. And I do have the day off—a Christmas gift from my nice bosses and one I will celebrate with a morning trip to Sam’s Club and an afternoon of errands. My plans for the holiday are thus: resting, eating, spending time at home, maybe watching my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie while sipping some hot chocolate. These are simple pleasures, and I intend to make the most of them.

One of the things I like best about Christmastime, on its most basic of levels, is that it brings the reminder of simple memories and traditions from years before: the glittery, pine-scented living rooms of my childhood, created by our yearly trek to the tree farm, where my cold and tired parents would have to chop down a blue spruce or evergreen and tie it to the roof; the years where I begged to open presents early, when we’d unwrap gifts on Christmas Eve mainly to satisfy my impatient pleading; the school programs; the church choirs; the attention given to a cold and dark manger scene, away from tinsel and sparkling lights.

To me, these reflections are a better holiday magic than the one I knew as a child, less glitz and glam, more depth and reality. I mean, in my earliest Christmas memory, I walked up to my bedroom, arms filled with presents, a pretty brunette doll with scratch-and-sniff chocolate cupcakes on top. I remember thinking, at the time, that life couldn’t get much better than this. And, as good as things seemed then, I was wrong: they have gotten better. In college, this season meant coming home, five fat weeks of relaxation and rest, where I could sleep in and go shopping and eat to my heart’s content. Since then, Christmas has meant a day off work. And yet it’s still more.

On our tree, for example, I find yearbooks of memories: a golden globe with my smiling four-month-old self and the words First Christmas. There’s a five-person ornament made of wood, labeled with our names, my grandma’s included, and strung from red yarn. Mixed with dozens of shimmering balls are a paper star with the words of Luke 2:11, a vintage Santa from the 1940s and a fair-haired angel with a silvery wand and a dress as dainty as spun silk.

Maybe you celebrate with your fist full of similar memories, be they prompted by tree ornaments, roaring parties or the annual family feast. And you know, the older I get, the more I want to carry on cookie baking, like Grandma did, but also the more I want to start new traditions, from only giving homemade gifts to planning months ahead of time or, here’s one to mark down, making peppermint bark.

One would be hard-pressed to find anything quite as festive, holiday-wise, flecked with crumbled red-and-white candies, set between and atop layers of white and bittersweet chocolate. It crunches when you bite in, rich and refreshing. And on top of that, peppermint bark looks complicated—it’s like biscotti in that way. It’s the kind of gourmet confection you can make with little trouble, that’s forgiving of any mistakes, that is so addictive, you won’t need much time at all to gobble up an entire sheet.

I had already decided to make peppermint bark for Christmas gifts, like I did last year, but I was looking for a recipe that would layer chocolates for a more impressive presentation. So when I saw Molly’s recipe last week, I bookmarked it immediately. This is some good peppermint bark, people. Did you know Williams Sonoma sells it for $20-something per pound? Make it, and you’ll know why.

You can use whatever you’d like to break up the peppermint candies (candy canes also work, by the way): I put them on a cutting board and banged with a hammer before loosening from their wrappers into a bowl.

Directions:
Turn a large baking sheet upside down, and cover it securely with aluminum foil. Measure out and mark a 9- by 12-inch rectangle on the foil. (I used masking tape to distinguish the area.)

Put the white chocolate in a metal (or other heatproof) bowl, and set it over a saucepan of barely simmering water. (Do not allow the bottom of the bowl to touch the water.) Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted and smooth; if you take its temperature with a candy thermometer, it should register 110°F. Remove the chocolate from the heat. Pour 2/3 cup of it onto the rectangle on the foil. Using an icing spatula, spread the chocolate to fill the rectangle. Sprinkle with ¼ cup of the crushed peppermints. Chill until set, about 15 minutes (don’t rush this, like I did—you’ll regret it!).

Meanwhile, combine the bittersweet chocolate, cream, and peppermint extract in a heavy medium saucepan. Warm over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture is just melted and smooth. Cool to barely lukewarm, about 5 minutes. Then remove the baking sheet from the refrigerator, and pour the bittersweet chocolate mixture over the white chocolate rectangle. Using a clean icing spatula, spread the bittersweet chocolate in an even layer. Chill until very cold and firm, about 25 minutes.

Rewarm the remaining white chocolate over barely simmering water to 110°F. Working quickly, pour the white chocolate over the firm bittersweet layer, using your clean icing spatula to spread it to cover. Sprinkle with remaining crushed peppermints. Chill just until firm, about 20 minutes.

Carefully lift the foil from the baking sheet onto a large cutting board. Trim away any ragged edges of the rectangle. (Don’t worry if there’s a lot of excess: more to snack on!) You can cut the bark crosswise into 2-inch-wide strips, cut each strip into 3 sections and slice them into two triangles or, what I prefer, just break away at it into small pieces.

Pack into an airtight container, with sheets of wax paper between layers of bark to prevent them from sticking to one another. Store in the refrigerator. Serve cold or, to emphasize the slight softness of the bittersweet layer, let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving.

Note: This bark will keep for up to 2 weeks, if not more. If you plan to pack it in a tin or baggie with other holiday sweets, be sure to wrap it separately in plastic wrap. Or maybe wax paper and then plastic wrap, so that it doesn’t sweat. If you left it naked, so to speak, to mix and mingle with other cookies or candies, everything might wind up tasting and smelling like peppermint.

People don’t have dinner parties much nowadays, which is really a shame, I think. I mean, they still happen, less formally usually, but mostly eating at someone’s house has been replaced by meeting them at a restaurant. And there is something lost in not cooking for friends and being cooked for by them. For one, you won’t be trading recipes afterwards, and, that is a loss indeed.

My mom’s apricot chicken isn’t really hers; it came from Alice, who had our family over years ago. My favorite butter cake came from Mrs. Newman, who made it for us—especially for me—many times before I finally coaxed the recipe from her. Some of my most-loved meals came from someone else’s kitchen.

In a way, maybe that’s part of the appeal of food blogging. Pull up a good food blog, and you’re the guest in someone’s home, someone you come to know if you visit often enough. You see what ingredients and preparation went into the meal. You read the host’s reactions and promises for good outcomes. Over time, you come to trust the blogger, and, as here I hope, you find yourself tucking away the recipes like you would a good friend’s.

That said, I’ve got a real treat for you. Of all the cookies I’ve given people, these are the ones that everyone wants the recipe for. They are the first biscotti I ever baked, the ones that I made for my friend’s wedding, the ones that taste like chewy chocolate cookies with a bit of bite. I’ve made them for my family, co-workers, a boyfriend, long-distance friends. Everyone likes them. While biscotti traditionally seems a bit more refined than a classic chocolate-chip cookie (I remember that same old boyfriend telling me a kid wouldn’t like biscotti, but that was before he tasted them) these will please any palate. (And, as an added bonus, there will be no pistachio shelling involved (!!).)

If you’re at all intimidated by the term biscotti—and won’t there be double baking involved?—don’t be. These are so, so easy, I promise, I promise. I’ll risk my whole you’re-eating-my-food reputation on it. These biscotti are the kind of cookies you can count on, perfect to wow anyone who likes chocolate, and the work involved is no more than it would take to make any other cookie.

Essentially, for biscotti, you make up a cookie dough–simple ingredients like butter, flour, sugar, eggs, with the boost of cocoa powder for the chocolate flavor—which will be formed into two logs and baked. Remove from the oven and cool for an hour or overnight, then slice up into biscotti-size pieces to be baked again.

That’s it.

You can bake them longer or shorter to define the crunch factor. And they only improve over the next few days.

Hello, Twitter! Everyone else seems to be tweeting, so I decided to join them. If you’d like to keep up with Food Loves Writing on twitter, you can do so here, under the title foodloves (and if you’re a food blogger on there, let me know your twitter name).

On to the recipe!

Double-Chocolate Biscotti
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

For a traditionally crunchy biscotti—the kind you dip in your coffee without it dissolving into your cup—you’ll have to bake these a bit longer (it’s best to keep your eye on them). Before you go for crunchy, though, taste them after the first bake—they’ll be soft, chewy, a lot more like a fudgey cookie than a crunchy biscotti. A lot of tasters prefer them that way, in fact.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Add sugar, cocoa powder and baking powder, and beat until combined. Next, beat in eggs.

Beat in as much of the flour as you can. Using a spoon, stir in any remaining flour, white baking pieces and semisweet chocolate. Divide dough in half.

Shape each half into a 9-inch-long log, and place these logs, about four inches apart, on a greased cookie sheet. Flatten them slightly until about two inches wide.

Bake logs in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the centers comes out clean.

Cool on the cookie sheet on a wire rack for 1 hour (you can also wrap the logs in plastic and let stand overnight).

After you cool the logs, you slice them diagonally into biscotti-sized pieces. Place them, cut side down, on a fresh, parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes on each side, or for about 12 minutes total. Just watch them to see if they look like the right consistency.

It’s been a blur of flour, butter and chocolate around here lately, and, honestly, you’d think I’d be sick of it. But I’m not.

For the last month, I’ve been embracing holiday baking with arms wide open—and have the freezer full of cookies to prove it. There were the oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies, yes. Then the crumbly brown butter cookies; next, Earl Grey. Monday, on my cooking day, I made biscotti, four kinds of slice-and-bakes and, on a whim, triangle-shaped brown butter shortbread, after seeing it on Lottie & Doof. Right now, even as I type this, my sore throat aching and six blankets on top of me (thank you, winter), I’m dreaming of Molly’s peppermint bark and deciding I’ll have time to make it, too. Priorities, you know?

There’s something wonderful, food-wise, about this time of year. As the holidays approach, even non-cooks, the ones who say they aren’t very interested in the kitchen, have been known to pull out a cookie sheet and to frost some sugary Christmas trees or snowmen cut-outs. It’s just what you do in late December.

While I package up fudgey, sugary chocolate snowflakes in square, red tins—a gift for my coworkers—it’s with the knowledge that I am not alone. I know there are kitchens throughout Chicagoland, throughout the country, throughout the world, serving as backdrops for powdered-sugar and creamed-butter activities. And I’ll admit that’s part of why I like it.

There’s a unity, a sense of us all being in on this together. This time of year, we’re all part of a large community that watches the same White Christmas or It’s a Wonderful Life on television, that checks off names on the same kinds of gift lists, that travels to see people we love, wherever they may be. I like to think that at Christmastime, especially, we reflect a little better the essence of something we all desire and for which we were made: love.

The first time I saw this recipe, I rejected it, thinking I didn’t have a flower cutter, and what would look as nice? Really, though, any large shape would work. I happened upon this snowflake shape accidentally, and I love how large it makes the cookies. These chocolate treats would work especially well, I think, as the containers of an ice cream sandwich, or even as the bottom of a hot fudge sundae. You try it and decide.

Directions:
Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Whisk dry flour, salt and baking powder in bowl and set aside. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and cocoa in mixer. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour.

Roll out cookie dough on floured counter. Cut into desired shapes, brushing extra deposits of flour off the top. (It does disappear once baked, though, so don’t overly fret if they go into the oven looking white.) Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 to 11 minutes (the former for 1/8-inch thick cookies, the latter for 1/4-inch cookies) until the edges are firm and the centers are slightly soft and puffed.

Carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool. (Be especially careful if you’re using a cutter that makes for delicate pieces, like snowflake arms.)

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"That's at the root of all giving, don't you think? At the root of all art. You can't hoard the beauty you've drawn into you; you've got to pour it out again for the hungry, however feebly, however stupidly. You've just got to." Elizabeth Goudge

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien

"Every kind word spoken, every meal proffered in love, every prayer said, can become a feisty act of redemption that communicates a reality opposite to the destruction of a fallen world." Sarah Clarkson